21 Apr
2021
21 Apr
'21
1:49 a.m.
Hi,
I'm trying to find out if the BASIC dialect that was available for the
MINCAL computers (aboutn 1971) was something derived from another "system"
or whether it was an own dialect.
Some characteristic instructions that I can't find somewhere else are:
- Formatted output with PRINT FOR(<FORTRAN like description>)
Example: PRINT FOR(F5.0)500.1
- Computed GOTO with GOTO <expression> OF n1,n2,...
Example: GOTO A+B+1 OF 100,20,50
- Presence of "DEF FN", lack of RESTORE for DATA/READ constructs.
This BASIC must have been around 1970-1972.
Christian
21 Apr
21 Apr
4:19 a.m.
It is not too hard to imagine a professional programmer who took a copy of
Dartmouth BASIC and adapted it for this flavor of BASIC, but I personally
dont have any reference docs about it or proof.
If there are FORTRAN-esque commands added to the core Dartmouth version I
would search for another instance prior to MINICAL where this was done.
Back then BASIC flavors and adaptations were becomming common so it may
simply be MINICAL BASIC would have been just as easy for a period
programmer to whip up from scratch.
Bill
On Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 4:50 AM Christian Corti via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hi,
I'm trying to find out if the BASIC dialect that was available for the
MINCAL computers (aboutn 1971) was something derived from another "system"
or whether it was an own dialect.
Some characteristic instructions that I can't find somewhere else are:
- Formatted output with PRINT FOR(<FORTRAN like description>)
Example: PRINT FOR(F5.0)500.1
- Computed GOTO with GOTO <expression> OF n1,n2,...
Example: GOTO A+B+1 OF 100,20,50
- Presence of "DEF FN", lack of RESTORE for DATA/READ constructs.
This BASIC must have been around 1970-1972.
Christian
6:31 a.m.
On Apr 21, 2021, at 6:19 AM, Bill Degnan via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It is not too hard to imagine a professional programmer who took a copy of
Dartmouth BASIC and adapted it for this flavor of BASIC, but I personally
dont have any reference docs about it or proof.
I?m not sure I would describe it as ?professional? but at one point my employer did pay me
to hack up a copy of Bywater BASIC to produce CGI headers rather than its usual banner.
This was so we would have .bas files starting with #!/usr/bin/basic that were called as
CGI executables.
8:29 a.m.
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021, it was written
If there are FORTRAN-esque commands added to the core
Dartmouth version I
would search for another instance prior to MINICAL where this was done.
Back then BASIC flavors and adaptations were becomming common so it may
simply be MINICAL BASIC would have been just as easy for a period
programmer to whip up from scratch.
Minor correction: it's MINCAL (as in Dietz MINCAL), not MINICAL.
Christian
24 Apr
24 Apr
3:25 p.m.
On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 5:19 AM Bill Degnan via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It is not too hard to imagine a professional
programmer who took a copy of
Dartmouth BASIC and adapted it for this flavor of BASIC, but I personally
dont have any reference docs about it or proof.
[...]
so it may
simply be MINICAL BASIC would have been just as easy for a period
programmer to whip up from scratch.
The latter seems far more likely. From what little is known about it, the
MINCAL architecture is apparently very dissimilar to the GE-225/235/265 or
GE-635, e.g. the MINCAL being a BCD machine, so I'd expect it would have
been much easier to write a new BASIC interpreter for the MINCAL from
scratch than to adapt it from actual Dartmouth BASIC.
Are there any known actual "ports" of Dartmouth BASIC to non-GE/Honeywell
machines, as opposed to scratch reimplementations?
21 Apr
21 Apr
10:10 a.m.
On 2021-Apr-21, at 1:49 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
I'm trying to find out if the BASIC dialect that
was available for the MINCAL computers (aboutn 1971) was something derived from another
"system" or whether it was an own dialect.
Some characteristic instructions that I can't find somewhere else are:
- Formatted output with PRINT FOR(<FORTRAN like description>)
Example: PRINT FOR(F5.0)500.1
- Computed GOTO with GOTO <expression> OF n1,n2,...
Example: GOTO A+B+1 OF 100,20,50
- Presence of "DEF FN", lack of RESTORE for DATA/READ constructs.
This BASIC must have been around 1970-1972.
It's not clear what you're looking for:
1. A possible predecessor/origin for the source code or design of the MINCAL
interpreter,
2. or, earlier BASIC implementations that had the language features you mention.
If 2:
- HPBASIC for the late-60s HP2100 machines (2115,2115,2114) has DEF FN. (Date of source
reference: 4/70).
- the HP9830 (released 1972) has both DEF FN and computed goto (as well as computed
gosub).
- The 9830 has very Fortran-ish WRITE and FORMAT statements.
DEF FN was nothing new, it was apparently in the original Dartmouth.
11:40 p.m.
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021, Brent Hilpert wrote:
It's not clear what you're looking for:
1. A possible predecessor/origin for the source code or design of the MINCAL
interpreter,
2. or, earlier BASIC implementations that had the language features you mention.
Well, both with the focus on 1.
I'm trying to find out if there were other earlier implementations of the
languages that were available for the MINCAL 500 series. Apparently we
have the only existing system, and all software seem to be lost, so I
thought I might try to recreate some of it by finding references/sources
from other systems. I want to start with the BASIC
interpreter.
Christian
1107
days inactive
1110
days old
6 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
bhilpert＠shaw.ca -
billdegnan＠gmail.com -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
dseagrav＠lunar-tokyo.net -
spacewar＠gmail.com